In a bobbin-spindle drive of the type described in commonly owned U.S. application Ser. No. 164,530, filed July 2, 1980 by H. Wolf, a bobbin-support spindle is carried directly on the shaft of an electric motor which in turn is mounted directly in a support beam. The motor shaft extends upwardly and downwardly out of the motor and is normally supported above and below the motor in the upper and lower walls of the support beam by bearings. Such heavy-duty mounting is necessary because the bobbin spindle carried on the motor shaft is subjected to considerable lateral deflection and is rotated at extremely high speed, sometimes in the neighborhood of 20,000 revolutions per minute (RPM).
The main problem withh the bearings of such an arrangement is keeping them lubricated. The rotor acts centrifugally to throw any oil between the bearings radially outward, so that oil transmission along the shaft is virtually impossible. Thus it is a standard occurrence for the upper bearing to dry out and, hence, burn out. Such a failure creates a nasty service problem for the operator of the machine and can even entail shutting down an entire section of a multiple-bobbin twisting or spinning machine of the type described in the above-identified application.